Time’s Legacy

12

Abi jerked awake with a shiver. Had she dozed off, there on her knees in the church? The place was in total darkness; she looked round nervously. She had been dreaming about Petra, here in church, just a brief glimpse of the girl with her poor swollen hands huddling into her bed to keep warm as the wind rose, stirring the fire, blowing wisps of smoke around the interior of the house. Lydia too was worried. There was no news. No word from Mora.

‘Mora?’ Rising to her feet, Abi called the name out loud. ‘Mora? What happened?’ She made her way back down the aisle and fumbled for the door latch, pulling the door open. It was full dark now and she had no torch. She walked outside, closing the door behind her and stood for a moment staring round. There was still a faint glow of light in the west, but above her now the stars were appearing, bright in the clear night sky. In the distance she heard a bark, then again, closer. The dogs were back, which meant so were Cal and Mat. With a smile she turned towards the lych-gate. Before she was halfway there the two dogs had found her and leaped up in greeting.

It wasn’t until after they had eaten supper and were sitting round the fire nursing their coffee that Abi mentioned Kier’s visit that morning.

‘He let himself in through the conservatory. If Justin hadn’t still been here I don’t know what I would have done – ’ She broke off mid-sentence, wishing she could bite off her tongue as she saw Cal’s look of anguish.

‘He only came to borrow some books, Mat,’ Cal said quickly.

Abi saw the fury on Mat’s face in astonishment. ‘You didn’t think to mention the fact that he had been here?’ He was addressing his wife.

She shook her head. ‘Why? When I know how much it upsets you.’

‘You know I have forbidden him to come anywhere near the house!’

‘It’s as much his house as yours, Mat,’ Cal said quietly. ‘Your grandfather left it to the three of you equally.’

‘And he chose not to take up his share. This is my home and I will not have him set foot under my roof!’ Mat stood up. ‘Has he been here before?’

‘You know he has.’

‘I mean recently. Tell me, Cal!’ They seemed to have forgotten that Abi was there. Thiz came and sat beside her uneasily, leaning against her legs and she lowered her hand to fondle the dog’s ears. She glanced down. Her hands were warming up. Instinctively she was seeking out the animal’s aching shoulders where arthritis was beginning to make its mark. She let her hand rest where it was for a moment with a small silent prayer. No-one noticed save the dog, who looked up at her with a small moan of pleasure.

‘He’s been here once or twice. He’s never stayed for more than a few minutes. He takes one or two books, and he’s always brought them back.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Mat turned away, his voice suddenly quiet.

‘You know why, Mat. Because I don’t want scenes like this. He’s every right to come here. You know that as well as I do. He does no harm. He touches nothing except the books. And they are as good as his. You know your grandfather meant them for him.’

‘And what does he do with them?’

Cal shook her head. She went over to her husband and kissed his cheek tenderly. ‘He reads them, you ninny.’

There was a moment of silence, then Mat shook her off and headed for the door. Banging it behind him they heard his steps running up the stairs.

‘Sorry,’ Cal said after a few seconds. ‘You didn’t need to see all that.’

‘It was my fault,’ Abi said sorrowfully. ‘It’s me that should be sorry. I knew you didn’t want me to mention him. It just came out.’

‘Mat’s not rational when it comes to Justin. I don’t suppose he ever will be now. It goes back a long way. Forget it happened. We’ll all be back to normal tomorrow morning.’

‘What does Justin do, Cal?’ Abi asked. Withdrawing her hand from the dog’s back, she picked up her coffee mug again.

Cal hesitated. ‘He writes books. He’s a historian.’

Abi smiled tentatively. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘No.’ Cal sounded bleak.

‘Does he live near here?’

Cal shrugged. ‘I don’t know where he lives, Abi. He’s never told us.’

Abi knelt for a long time in prayer that night when at last she went upstairs. A hazy moon was hanging low in the sky as she stood up at last and went over to look out of the window. The garden was misty; she could make out little detail beyond the dim silhouettes of the trees. Somewhere an owl called, a sharp urgent shattering of the silence, answered from a long way away by a wavering hoot. She pushed open the casement and leaned out on her elbows. It was cold outside and smelled of dead leaves and wet earth. The smoke from the house chimneys wreathed around the rooftops, wafting the incense of burning oak and apple into the air. ‘Was it you, up there in the hills?’ she whispered again. ‘Were you here? Did you know Mora?’

There was no answer. Turning away from the window at last she pulled it shut and went over to the drawer where she kept the stone. She had tucked it away before supper but now she brought it out again and unwrapped it on the bed. It lay there, an inert lump of rock with its crystal faces dim. She laid her hand on it gently. Nothing.

‘Mummy?’ She whispered the word into the quiet room, lit only by the dull moonlight at the window and the bedside lamp with its aged ivory shade. ‘Mummy, are you there? I need to talk to you.’

Again there was no response. She picked up the stone and held it in her hands. ‘Why aren’t you working?’ She carried it over to the window and held it up to the moonlight, angling it back and forth to catch the pale gleam on its surface. With a sigh she left it on the window sill and finally climbing into bed she switched off the lamp and lay there staring up at the ceiling.

‘Athena isn’t in today.’ Bella glanced up from her magazine as Abi went into the shop. ‘Sorry.’

‘Do you know where I could find her?’ Abi was amazed at the lurch of disappointment she felt at the news. She had counted on speaking to the woman again. Her combination of certainty and doubt, of knowledge and ignorance and reassuring experience of life suited Abi’s mood perfectly.

Bella shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I should tell you.’ She looked anxious suddenly.

‘Her phone number then?’

Athena sounded as though she had just woken up. With a groan she gave Abi the address. The flat was only minutes away, reached by an iron spiral staircase which led up out of one of the attractive little courtyards lined with small shops, which lie behind the high street. On the inner corner of every other step there was a plant pot. Athena opened the door dressed in an exotic black housecoat decorated with scarlet dragons and led the way into her kitchen. It was small and chaotic. Abi liked it immediately. Heavy greeny-blue pottery, plants, jars of herbs, a crystal ceiling chime, a lump of wood for a breadboard, still with her breakfast loaf, seedy, crumbly and smeared with Somerset honey. It was exactly the sort of kitchen she would have expected this woman to have.

Hitching herself onto a stool at the breakfast bar she watched as Athena brewed fresh coffee. ‘I’m sorry to come so early.’ It was nearly eleven. ‘But I had to talk to you. The crystal still isn’t working, so maybe you’re right and it is all imagination. And I know you said I should rely on myself now, and not the crystal anyway, but I’m obviously not working either. Nothing is happening, and I have to know. Did he kill Mora? I haven’t slept all night.’

Athena grimaced. She reached onto the counter for a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. ‘Sorry, I know it doesn’t go with the image, but I can’t think straight until I’ve had one.’ She struck a match and lit up, inhaling deeply. Then she shook her head, eyes closed. ‘Abi, dear, don’t you think it would be more sensible to worry about real people and real things?’

Abi’s mouth fell open. ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt ridiculously chastened. ‘But I thought you understood.’

‘I do understand. All this crap is too beguiling, isn’t it? Romantic. Wonderful. It seduces you away from the real world. Then you turn back and find the real world has moved on and passed you by. That’s Glastonbury for you all over. Bloody Avalon!’

Abi was silent. ‘What’s wrong, Athena?’ she said at last.

‘Someone died.’ Athena was staring out of the window. A basket of pink pelargoniums hung there, from a brass hook.

Abi sighed. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She watched as Athena poured the coffee and hauled herself onto a stool next to her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked at last.

‘That’s your job, isn’t it. Talking to the bereaved.’

‘It was part of it, yes.’

‘Do you still believe in it all? Heaven, I mean. Now you’ve seen the poor buggers hanging around in the ether acting out their lives again and again and again!’ Athena took another drag on the cigarette.

Abi put her hands around her mug, warming them. ‘It’s something I have been thinking about a lot. My faith has had to change over the last few months. I haven’t lost it.’ She hesitated. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But I am having to adapt.’

‘How bloody convenient!’

Abi bit her lip. ‘I don’t think it’s just convenient,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s taken a lot of heart searching. I’m not there yet.’ She took a sip from her mug.

‘Tim. That’s who died. My husband. My ex,’ Athena said after another long pause. ‘Cancer.’

‘You still loved him?’ Abi said cautiously.

‘I suppose I must have.’

‘That’s hard.’

Athena nodded. She sniffed. ‘I can feel him here. In the flat. Through there in the living room. Every time I go in there I can see him sitting at the clavichord; I never knew why he didn’t take it with him, he was the one who played it. I’ve never even tried. Not after he went. I always thought he would come back for it, but he never did.’ She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, slid from her stool and went over to the kettle. ‘This coffee’s cold.’ She flicked the switch. ‘He loved that thing.’

‘Would you like me to say a prayer?’ Abi asked cautiously. She gave a half-smile and shook her head. ‘It’s what I do. Sorry. Perhaps not.’

‘Say one in there if you want.’ Athena indicated a door across the narrow passageway opposite the kitchen. ‘I’ll stay here if you don’t mind. Abi, the goddess thing. I don’t think I ever really believed it. I tried to. I enjoyed all their rituals and stuff to start with, or most of them,’ she said, grinning. ‘But then I started to have problems with it all. For instance, I could never bring myself to sit on the egg-stone! Did you see it, the Tor Bur behind the abbots’ kitchen in the abbey grounds? Someone has left it there at the foot of the wall and so many legends have built up round it. There is a depression in it which could look as though it was made to hold your crystal! Don’t even ask what they use it for. It would really upset your vicarly susceptibilities. I had swallowed the whole “this is the authentic religion of the British Isles, it is as ancient as time itself” thing for a while, but it wasn’t. I began to feel a shallowness. It was all made up. Part of the feminist movement. It had no substance. They wanted it to be real so badly, and who knows, perhaps I’m wrong and it is, but it just didn’t do it for me.’

Abi didn’t know what to say. She slipped off her stool. The main room of the flat was large with full-length windows leading onto a narrow wooden balcony which overlooked the courtyard below. On it a cluster of ceramic pots held a riot of flowers. The curtains and drapes were all shades of the same green-blue as the mugs and plates in the kitchen. She looked round. There was an old sofa, spread with a sequined shawl, piled high with cushions, a couple of soft armchairs, a low table, loaded with magazines and books and a huge chunky candle, an ancient TV and a modern sound system, and against the wall the small keyboard instrument, its lid open, music on the music rest. Abi went and stood looking down at it. Mozart. She reached out a finger and stroked one of the keys. The sound was so quiet she barely heard it.

‘He’s gone, hasn’t he.’ The voice behind her made her jump.

She glanced round and nodded. ‘I think so. Perhaps he just came to say goodbye.’

‘I wonder?’ Athena’s voice was bitter. ‘More likely, “Now I can really fuck you up, Athena! I’ll come and haunt you for the rest of your days. That will be fun!”’ She threw herself down on the sofa.

Abi perched on a chair opposite her. ‘It sounds as though you two had a lot of unfinished business.’

‘You could say so.’

‘You’re a wise woman, Athena. You know what to do. Let it go. Let him go.’

‘Do you think I don’t want to?’

‘I think you didn’t want to.’

‘And now I do?’

‘Now you can.’

Athena leaned back, studying her face. ‘I suspect you were a bloody good vicar.’

Abi gave a rueful smile, shaking her head. ‘Obviously not good enough. But this I think I do understand. Whatever unfinished business there was between you is over now. It’s up to you to forgive him and send him on his way with your blessing. It will free you both. Then you can move on.’

‘The usual, sadly rather trite piece of advice. Next comes, “Get on with the rest of your life”. Counsellors’ psychobabble.’

‘It’s a bit of psychobabble that works.’ Abi shrugged. ‘If you nurture your hurt it will stay with you. Spoil your life. That would be your fault, not his. You’re worth more than that, Athena. You are a strong woman. You can do it.’

‘Why did you come here this morning, Abi? To ask me what to do about your vanishing ghosts? It seems to me you know all the answers yourself.’ Athena gave a quiet chuckle. ‘OK. Give me a few minutes to get dressed and we’ll go out. Leave Tim to tinkle away here if he wants to.’ She went over and threw open the windows. ‘There. Now his spirit can leave unimpeded. Bon voyage, my dear.’ She waved at the window.

Abi waited for her in the kitchen. Then they went to the Chalice Well.

‘It seems the right place for both of us, today.’ Athena walked ahead of her up the cobbled path and through the gardens. The place was deserted.

Abi looked round in delight. ‘I had forgotten it was all so beautiful and serene.’

‘There is so much love here.’ Athena paused as they reached the well head itself. The ornate wooden lid decorated with the iron Vesica Piscis, the interlinked circles whose ancient symbolism brings together pagan and Christian, East and West, lay open, ferns growing out from under the iron grid which covered the dark, still water. One or two flowers floated on its surface and someone had left a ring of tealights on the well’s rim. The flames flickered slightly in the breeze. ‘People come here with their prayer and blessings,’ Athena said quietly. ‘It is the right place for both of us, today. Your Mora would have come here all the time. And Tim loved it here. It was here he told me he was leaving me. He thought it would soften the blow, saying it here.’

Abi bit her lip. ‘Athena -’

‘No. This is the place to lay the demons. You are right about that. I won’t have him destroying my relationship with one of the most sacred places in England. I never came back after that day.’ She sat down on the wall which bounded the flowerbeds. Behind her a small pink cyclamen, caught for a moment in a ray of sunlight echoed the delicate shade of the drooping flowers hanging from a fuchsia bush. ‘He spoiled it for me. What an irony. I don’t think he meant to. I think he really did feel it would make it easier.’ She paused as behind the neighbouring yew trees a young man, sitting down on a hidden bench, began to pluck a quiet, doleful tune from his guitar. ‘He knew how much I loved it here,’ she went on in a whisper. ‘That was part of the trouble. He felt I loved this town, the whole Avalon experience, more than him. He wanted to get back to reality.’

‘Reality is such a subjective thing,’ Abi said after a long pause. ‘What you and I think of as beauty and truth someone else considers a complete cop out.’

‘I think that someone else is probably right.’ Athena sighed.

Abi was staring down at the water in the well. It was dark and still. As she looked a leaf drifted down and settled beside the white daisies someone had left there, floating on the surface. It made a small ripple. She could see the blood-red traces of the iron chalybeate staining the wall of the well below the moss. This was the red spring, so sacred to the ancients, in the depths of which, so legend had it, after the Crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathaea on his return to Glastonbury hid the Chalice of the Last Supper. Above it the two yew trees lazily scattered crimson berries around their feet.

‘It’s the blood of the earth.’ The voice beside her was soft. She looked up. Mora was standing there, staring down into the water of the well. Except it wasn’t a well any more it was a spring, surrounded by trees, yew trees, perhaps the ancestors of the same yew trees under which they had been sitting moments before. Mora looked up and smiled at her. ‘This is the most sacred place.’

‘I know,’ Abi whispered. ‘I can feel it.’

‘He came here with me,’ Mora went on. ‘Yeshua. He understood.’

Abi felt her eyes filling with tears. ‘What happened up there in the hills? Did Flavius find you that day?’

Mora nodded. ‘Oh yes, he found us.’ She looked down into the water again. ‘Look deep into the crystal. It will tell you Yeshua’s story. He was such a special person. A man who would change everything – ’ Already she was fading, a shadow in the sunlight, no more.

‘Don’t go!’ Abi jumped to her feet. But where Mora had been standing there was nothing but the shadows of the trees. The well was once more enclosed by a stone rim with an iron-clad lid to close it out of sight.

Athena smiled at her. ‘Mora was here?’

Abi nodded. ‘Did you see her? She told me to look in the crystal. She knew about the crystal. She knew who – ’ She paused. ‘Who Yeshua was.’

Athena shook her head. ‘Did you bring it with you?’

‘No.’

‘Go and find it then. Go home now, Abi. I think I’ll stay here for a bit.’ It was a dismissal. She had not asked where Yeshua fitted into the story.

Kier switched off his phone and stared thoughtfully out of the car window. He was parked outside Morrisons and had been about to drive away when Professor Rutherford had phoned him. ‘Have you seen her? How is she?’ The professor sounded thoroughly irritable.

Kier sighed. Poor Abi. No wonder she had wanted to escape if that was her father’s usual demeanour. ‘I’ve seen her a couple of times,’ he said cautiously. ‘She is still adamant sadly that she doesn’t want to speak to me.’

‘What are these people like who she is staying with?’ Harry Rutherford asked after a moment’s thought. ‘I believe my wife knew them, but as far as I know she hadn’t seen them for a long time.’

‘They seem decent enough,’ Kier replied cautiously, ‘but obviously they are shielding her. They believe that I have somehow offended her, I am not very welcome in their house.’

There was another short silence. ‘Have you found the wretched stone yet?’

‘What stone?’ Kier flicked an imaginary speck of dust off his trouser leg. He was watching a woman manoeuvre a heavy trolley closer and closer to his car. In a moment he would have to get out to show her that he was there and would not appreciate his car being rammed by her wretched shopping. No, she had spotted him and yanked it back on course. He sighed with relief.

‘Didn’t I tell you about the stone?’ Rutherford sounded incredulous.

Kier shook his head. Good grief. She had got one, two, three six-packs of beer in that trolley. And now came the wine. No wonder it was so heavy. ‘Sorry, Harry, what were you saying about a stone?’

Ten minutes later Kier was still listening. The woman had long since driven away.

‘Yes, I can see why you would hesitate to tell anyone about it,’ he murmured. ‘It sounds like complete fantasy.’

He sat still for a long time after the call. Clearly Harry Rutherford was right. This explained everything. The change in her attitude, her obsession, sudden supernatural powers which were, he now realised, beyond her control. Nothing to do with her. He had to find this ridiculous stone and dispose of it. He was as certain as the professor that the legend Abi’s mother had attached to it was complete rubbish, but that made it no less potent. After all Laura Rutherford had believed it and now, so did Abi herself. It was the stone which had destroyed their relationship. It explained everything if it was after she had been given the thing that she started to turn against him.

He chewed his lip thoughtfully. She was not going to give it to him calmly, that was for sure. So, how in the world was he going to get hold of it?

He was staying at a small hotel in Wells. He loved Wells, the cathedral, the ancient city, the bishop’s palace. The whole place soothed his soul and, he glanced at his watch, if he set off now, he could be there in time for evensong. Resolutely he drove past the gate of Woodley Manor without even looking. Tomorrow, after a night of prayer and careful planning he would return and think of a way of retrieving this superstitious lump of rock. Then he would take it and throw it in the Bishop of Bath and Wells’s moat. It would be a fitting resting place for it. He shook his head with a wry smile. ‘I don’t believe I’ve agreed to do this. This is ridiculous. Mad! Insane!’

At the Rectory next morning Ben was scraping the last fragment of boiled egg from its shell, The Times folded open at the leader page on the table in front of him, when Janet came back into the kitchen after answering the phone in the hall. He glanced up.

‘Abi,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t put her off. She sounded distraught.’

He put down his egg spoon with a sigh. ‘Is she coming straight over?’

Janet nodded. ‘I’ve checked the fire in your study and I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.’

He glanced at her. This was a change of tune from last time. Kier had annoyed her so much she was prepared to accept Abi now without comment. Standing up he refolded The Times and handed it to her.

‘Shall I make the coffee now?’ Janet asked.

‘Please. Meanwhile, I’ll go and say a prayer before she comes.’

Ben stood at the window in his study staring out across the grass. The wind in the night had brought down a lot more leaves. Under the maple tree at the edge of the lawn a fresh carpet of gold lay in an exact circle on the grass beneath its branches which were almost bare now. With a sigh he closed his eyes and tried to marshal his thoughts.

Abi waited until Janet had set the tray of coffee down on the side table and left the room before she turned to Ben. ‘I’ve lost her.’

‘Lost who?’ Ben was expecting to talk about Kier.

‘Mora. I can’t contact her. I’ve lost the thread of the story. She appeared to me at the Chalice Well yesterday, just briefly, and she said I should look in the crystal, but the crystal is useless. It isn’t working. I can’t do it any more.’ She paced up and down the room a couple of times. ‘And now Mora has gone. I tried all night.’

Surreptitiously Ben studied her face. She looked drawn and utterly exhausted. ‘And you got no sleep at all,’ he said quietly.

Abi nodded. ‘There is something I haven’t told you.’ She sat down on the edge of the chair.

Ben walked over to the tray and began to pour the coffee. He said nothing for a few moments, waiting for her to go on. When he turned back to her with the cup in his hand she was staring down at the floor.

He put the cup down on the table beside her. ‘What is it you haven’t told me, Abi?’ he said at last.

‘I’ve seen Jesus.’ She looked up at him and he saw defiance in her expression. And fear. Was she expecting him to laugh? To ridicule her? To have her sectioned, or to send to the bishop’s office to have her made a saint?

He turned away and took the chair opposite her. ‘Supposing you tell me exactly what happened.’

‘He was here, at the druid school. Studying. The story, the legend is true. He came here, to England. He spent time here. With Mora.’ She was twisting her hands together nervously as she told him the whole story. ‘Obviously he wasn’t called Jesus. They all call him Yeshua, but that is all right, isn’t it? Some people say that was his real name. Obviously we know Flavius couldn’t have killed him because he went back to the Holy Land to begin his teaching there but what happened when he tried to get near him? Did Flavius kill Mora? Did Romanus help him? What happened in that hut? I have to know.’ There was a hint of something like desperation in her voice.

Ben stared thoughtfully into the fire. ‘It seems strange that suddenly your visions should have been stopped. Did that coincide with Kier’s arrival?’

It was not the response she had expected. Why hadn’t he pounced on her revelation?

She frowned. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know! Why?’

‘I wondered if his presence down here, his belief that this is a demonic visitation, had acted as an inhibitor to your,’ he hesitated, trying to find the right word, ‘your experiences. Your imaginative faculty might have shut down and your rational good sense reawakened.’

She leaped to her feet. ‘My imaginative – you think I’ve imagined all this?’

‘Some of it, possibly. Abi, you know you might have. The ghosts, well Cal has substantiated your reports of those, but this other story – the detail – we have to keep an open mind. Having said that, whatever is happening here was, at least at first, a viable experience for you. It was tied up with experiences of otherworldly beings that others have seen. At the same time it is possible that you have been drawn in to the whole Glastonbury thing, my dear. I don’t want to belittle what you have seen, or think you have seen, but you know as well as I do that the idea that an historical Jesus came to England is complete rubbish. It is not possible. Why on earth would he have wanted to come here, to the ends of the Earth, to study with a bunch of pagan savages who were immersed in human sacrifice?’

She shook her head in despair. ‘No, you’ve got it wrong. You’ve got them wrong. There was no human sacrifice. They were learned men and women, the druids. They were wise, cultured, respected across the world. Jesus went to Egypt to study first, everyone knows that, then he went east, to India and Tibet.’ She ignored Ben’s slowly shaking head. ‘Then he came west. He needed to absorb and understand the learning of the Gentiles as well as that of the Jews. He had come to save the whole world. He needed to understand the scale of what he was undertaking. Everyone thinks he was just focused on the local scene. The small area round Galilee, but he wasn’t. He had visited other countries. He knew about other places, races, beliefs.’

Ben clasped his hands together and studied his knuckles for a few moments. Then he looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Abi. I have no right to denigrate what you are saying. It only shows how rigid are my own beliefs. Maybe you are right.’ He paused again. ‘But I don’t know where to go from here. I know you are praying for guidance as to what the right thing is that you should do, and I will do the same. It’s just that it is an area I know so little about.’

He reached for his cup. Abi was watching him in something like despair. ‘You haven’t asked me what he looked like,’ she said at last.

Ben shook his head. ‘You said you thought he was in his mid-twenties.’

‘Did I?’ She shrugged. ‘He was amazing. Strong, yet gentle. But he was confused. He had a temper. He was a healer, but he was impatient as well. So human. Attractive.’

Ben smiled. ‘Just as I – and perhaps you – would have imagined him to be.’

She nodded. ‘So, I can’t win. You are not going to believe me.’

‘I want to, Abi,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how much I want to.’ He took a thoughtful sip from his cup. ‘There is someone who could help us, perhaps. Someone who could look at this more objectively; who might understand the technicalities of what is happening to you. My brother, Justin.’

‘Justin!’ Abi stared at him in astonishment.

He looked up. ‘You’ve heard about him?’

‘I’ve met him. Twice.’

It was Ben’s turn to look astonished. ‘Where?’

‘At Woodley. He seems to make a habit of breaking and entering in the middle of the night or when he thinks the place is empty. How on earth could he possibly help with this?’

Ben was silent for a moment. ‘Did you speak to him?’

‘Not much. He did help to chase Kier away, for which I am grateful, but he still seems to me to be an arrogant, conceited man, bent on outwitting poor old Mat. I don’t like him, to be honest.’

Ben hid a smile. ‘That sounds like brother Justin all right. Neither of us exactly gets on with him. But he does have certain fields of expertise. The trouble is I don’t know where he lives at the moment. I don’t suppose he told you?’

‘No, he did not.’ Abi shook her head. ‘And Cal and Mat don’t know either. Cal mentioned the fact.’

‘Pity. Well, if you see him again, perhaps you could swallow your pride and ask him to get in touch with me. Or if the moment seems right, talk to him about all this yourself. What he has to say may surprise you.’

It wasn’t until later that day that Abi had the chance to speak to Cal alone. ‘I didn’t want to mention him in front of Mat. Not again. But how on earth could Justin help me with all this? Ben wouldn’t explain when I asked, he just looked quizzical!’

Cal was standing by the back door, a woven willow trug on her arm, a pair of secateurs in her hand. For a moment she reminded Abi almost unbearably of her mother who had so often carried a similar basket round the garden at home. Swallowing the wave of grief which threatened to overwhelm her she pulled on her coat and both women headed into the garden. The stone crystal, retrieved from the drawer upstairs, weighed down Abi’s pocket. ‘Justin knows a lot about local history; much more than any of us. He says he’s writing some sort of book on the area,’ Cal said cautiously. ‘I suppose Ben thinks he could throw light on what you’ve been experiencing. He’s also always been interested in what you might call occult practices.’

‘Occult -?’ Abi stared at her. ‘Black magic, you mean?’

Cal shrugged. ‘Something I think he called the Western Spiritual Tradition.’ They had walked towards the rosebeds and Cal began to select some long-stemmed buds. ‘I don’t even know if he still does it; maybe he grew out of it, but it was one of the things Mat hated. Strangely I think Ben respected him for having any kind of interest in spiritual matters at all. They used to discuss it. I don’t know why Ben and Justin fell out in the end. With Mat it was something that was there even when they were kids – and he was so much older he should have known better. I’ve always thought Justin had a raw deal with the other two.’ She concentrated on reaching some deep red blooms in the centre of the bed.

‘And Justin is a very attractive man,’ Abi said.

Cal glanced at her sharply. ‘You think so, do you?’

Abi blushed. ‘I’m human! But it’s you he fancies. Just a bit?’ she added quietly.

Cal shook her head. ‘No. At least, maybe a long time ago. Yes, I suppose that didn’t help.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’ve always liked Justin, but not in the same way I liked Mat. The old stick doesn’t seem to realise I still adore him. I always did. Justin never stood a chance. Not like that.’

Abi smiled. The affection in Cal’s voice was very genuine.

‘Justin seems a difficult man,’ she said after a pause. ‘Yes, I do find him attractive, but I didn’t take to him. I’m amazed Ben would recommend I get in touch with someone like that. Surely it goes against everything he should be doing to keep me in the church.’

Cal laughed. ‘Justin’s not that bad! No, I expect he was a bit acerbic when you met him! After all, you caught him in the act. He would much rather have slipped in and slipped out again. It is going to be much harder for him to use the library from now on. What Mat didn’t see, he didn’t worry about.’

‘Why should Mat begrudge him the library? Surely Justin could come when Mat is not here.’

‘Dog in the manger.’ Cal laid two more roses on the pile in the basket. ‘I’ve got two bed and breakfast visitors coming this weekend.’ She changed the subject abruptly. ‘So I thought I would make the house look nice. They won’t get in your way, so don’t worry. They will only be here at breakfast time.’

‘I was supposed to be helping you with things like that,’ Abi put in. ‘You must let me do things to pay my way.’

‘The bishop is paying your way, Abi,’ Cal said firmly. ‘So no more of that nonsense. You are a double joy. A nice guest, a good friend and you bring a bit of lovely money!’ She laughed. ‘Sorry. Does that sound too crude?’

Abi smiled. ‘Not at all. But I’m glad the friend bit crept in there. I was afraid I was causing you too much hassle what with my ghosts and Kier and everything.’

‘They are our ghosts too,’ Cal reminded her gently. ‘And as for Kier, well, he makes life more interesting, to be honest!’ She headed for the next flowerbed and began to cut some Michaelmas daisies. ‘Quite exciting, in fact. Wretched man!’

For a moment Abi thought about returning to the fascinating topic of Justin, but she swiftly thought better of it. Cal had changed the subject. Better to let it rest.

When she went back indoors Abi walked on down towards the ruins. The sun was low in the sky again, highlighting the colour of the autumn leaves. Sitting down on the bench, her fingers lying lightly on the crystal stone in her coat pocket, she saw the robin hop at once nearer, watching her with a beady black eye.

Suddenly it flew away. Something moved on the edge of her vision near the archway. She leaned forward. ‘Mora?’

She was there, an insubstantial shadow, no more. Barely visible against the spray of scarlet Virginia creeper. Abi clutched at the stone in her pocket. ‘Mora? Can you see me?’ She was overwhelmed with relief and anxiety.

The young woman was less hazy now, her outline distinct. She was wearing a light-coloured rough woollen robe with a greeny-grey cloak around her shoulders, the hood draped over her hair. She took a step towards Abi and Abi was aware that Mora’s eyes were fixed on her face. Slowly she stood up and took first one then another step towards her, as cautious as she would have been approaching the robin which had retreated to a tree nearby and was making anxious little alarm calls.

‘Mora?’ Abi whispered the name. ‘Can you see me?’ Slowly she reached out her hand.

The colours in the garden leached away suddenly. Abi glanced up at the sun. A huge cloud had drifted across its face. She looked back at the flowerbed. Mora had gone.

‘Blast!’ She sighed. Then she reached into her pocket again and drew out the stone. ‘Mora? Was this yours?’ The robin bobbed up and down and flew closer. ‘Please, come back. I want to talk to you.’

There was no response.

She waited a long time before she turned and walked back to the house.

The kitchen was empty. Abi glanced at the two flower arrangements standing on the table. The late roses had been distributed between them. They were beautiful but there was no sign of Cal in any of the downstairs rooms. Slowly she made her way up the staircase and paused on the landing. Cal was coming out of her bedroom. ‘Abi! I’m sorry. I should have locked the front door. I don’t think he touched anything. He left the second he heard me come upstairs.’

‘What? Who?’ Abi felt a clutch of fear in the pit of her stomach. ‘Not Kier?’

Cal nodded. She stepped away from Abi’s door. ‘The cheek of the man!’

Abi went into her room and stood staring round. ‘What was he doing?’

‘He was standing by the chest of drawers when I came up. None of the drawers was open or anything. As soon as he heard me he came out of the room, gave me a half-apologetic, half-embarrassed smile and raced down the stairs and out of the front door. I must have left it open. I often do. He didn’t say anything!’

Abi shivered. She opened the top drawer and looked inside. It was there she kept her underwear. It was impossible to tell if anything had been touched. Surely he wasn’t that sort of man. What on earth can have possessed him to take a risk like this?

Cal shook her head. ‘What did he want? He could see you weren’t in here. Did he just want to be near you?’

Abi sat down on the edge of the bed and felt the bump of the Serpent Stone in her jacket pocket against her thigh. She extricated it and stared down at it. ‘I wonder,’ she said after a moment, ‘if he was looking for this.’ She turned it over in her hands. ‘It might explain why when he saw I wasn’t here he might have decided to look round. If my father has told him about this and shown any of the fury and antagonism about it he showed me, then there was more than enough reason for Kier to try and find it.’

‘If you’re right, what would he have done with it if he had found it, I wonder?’ Cal said thoughtfully.

Abi gave a rueful smile. ‘Goodness knows, but I think you can be certain I wouldn’t have seen it again.’

‘You will have to hide it somewhere better than that,’ Cal said. ‘You can’t risk it.’

Abi stared at her. ‘You think he’ll come back?’ She nodded in answer to her own question. ‘Of course he will. You’re right. If this is what he’s after he will probably get obsessed by it the way he does about everything.’

‘You could go to the police, Abi,’ Cal said after a few moments’ thought. ‘The man is stalking you.’

Abi shook her head. ‘I can’t. Think of the scandal. He was rummaging through my knicker drawer. Two priests in the Church of England. Ex-priests. Lust. Passion. The Occult as you called it. We’d have the nation’s press camped on the doorstep within hours.’

Cal nodded. ‘It might put off my B & B guests, certainly.’ They both laughed uncomfortably. ‘I’ll remember to lock the front door in future. If we had been indoors we would have heard him. He must have known Mat and the dogs were out.’

‘Which means he’s been watching the house.’ Abi glanced towards the window. ‘Oh God, I hate this!’

‘Do you want to go and stay with Ben?’ Cal eyed her sympathetically. ‘Just for a few days. Kier won’t hang around forever.’

Abi shook her head again. ‘No, he’d guess where I’d gone at once. Besides, I am not going to let him chase me away.’ She hesitated. ‘Unless you would rather – ’

‘I’ve told you before.’ Cal headed for the door. ‘You can stay here for as long as you like.’

‘It will be good if you’ve got guests this weekend, though, Cal.’ Abi followed her to the staircase. ‘More cars outside. More people in the house at night.’

‘And I’ll make sure Mat leaves the dogs here when he goes out. They may not be the world’s greatest guard dogs, but they do bark at the right moment.’ Cal reached over and touched her arm. ‘Don’t worry. You have the Cavendish clan behind you. If he comes back we’ll be ready for him. He’s not going to be allowed to pester you and he’s not going to find your stone. I can show you somewhere to hide it which Kier will never find in a million years.’

It was in the garden. Cal left Abi to tuck the stone away and walked back to the house. Abi watched her go with a fond smile, then, almost without realising she had done it she turned aside to the bench and sat down, with it still in her hands. ‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘Mora? Romanus? What happened next?’

‘Tell me about Judea. I’ve never been anywhere very far from here. My sister was born near there, wasn’t she?’ Romanus and Flavius were walking side by side now, the horse’s rein over Romanus’s shoulder, the horse plodding behind them. The fog had grown thicker.

Flavius nodded. ‘Indeed she was. My first posting when I was a young man was to the service of Herod the Great in Jerusalem. I was in the legion which went to Galilee to put down the uprising at a town called Sepphoris. We taught them a lesson they wouldn’t forget in a hurry. I was noticed by my commanding officer and selected to join an elite force of undercover agents and we were ordered to look for a family of insurrectionists who claimed to be descendants of King David. They were expecting the birth of a child who people claimed would inherit the throne according to some sort of prophecy. The Jews are always talking about prophecies.’ He shook his head disparagingly. ‘Herod knew they would use it as an excuse to revolt again, so our mission was to find the kid and kill it.’

Romanus frowned. ‘A baby?’

‘Yes. A baby who would grow up to be a traitor.’

‘And did you?’

‘As it turned out, no. We killed a good few babies while we looked, but it turned out none of them was the right one. The parents knew we were after them and they fled to Egypt. It took us a while to find out. All the time we were a few steps behind them. They returned to their home town eventually, but they were protected all the time by people who knew about this wretched prophecy of theirs and hid them, and the boy grew up and left home.’

‘And this is the man you are searching for now?’ Romanus was frowning.

‘That’s it. He’s dangerous.’

‘But how can a healer be dangerous?’

Flavius looked down at him again. ‘Because he’s bright and lippy and thinks a lot of himself, or he did as a child, and the Jews think he is a king, that’s why. And so he is a danger to the Empire.’

‘And so you are still working for Herod?’

‘For his son. The old king died. His lands were divided. A new Herod, Herod Antipas was given the governorship of Galilee by the Emperor, and I work for him.’

‘I see.’ Romanus was still frowning. He was wondering how his uncle had found it so difficult to catch up with this man and kill him. He obviously wasn’t a very good assassin. He didn’t say so, of course. ‘And you’ve travelled the world in the search for him?’

‘It wasn’t as easy as you may think.’ Flavius had picked up on the unspoken criticism. It infuriated him. ‘Everywhere he goes he blends in. He is hidden. People like him. They fall for his charm. Somehow I am thwarted every time I come close. It is as if he is protected in some way.’ He scowled. ‘But here, at last, I have caught up with him. I know where he is. I just had to get him away from the druid school. I have no intention of going there and finding they have hidden him, or that once more he has slipped away in the night as I arrive or that I am spotted and forced to back away. He is waiting for a ship to take him back to the port of Caesarea. I have to do the deed before it arrives. And it has to be secret. Rome does not want me to be seen. Rome must not be involved. When this man dies, he dies from an accident, or he disappears. No-one must ever suspect that I have had a hand in it. That part of the Empire is always on a knife edge of rebellion and for the Jews to find out that a Roman agent has killed one of their number could cause another rebellion. He must disappear silently and without suspicion. I thought maybe he would drown in the lake, but up here in the mountains with these great limestone crags, he could as easily slip and break his neck or be savaged by a bear. And when his uncle arrives he will find that his nephew has disappeared without trace and all their prophecies and plans will have evaporated into this confounded fog.’

One glance through the shop window next morning told Abi that Bella was again on duty. Athena opened the door of her flat so quickly Abi realised she must have seen her walking across the courtyard from the balcony. ‘It occurred to me that you were the only person who might know where Justin lives,’ Abi said as they at down in the living room. She saw at once that the clavichord had gone. ‘Please, Athena. It looks as though he might be the only person who could help me.’

Athena gave a humourless chuckle. They were drinking herb tea this time, from the same pretty green mugs. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I grant you Justin might have more knowledge than Ben about some of this stuff, but summoning him back to the OK Corral might not be the way to tap into it. He’s likely to tell you where to get off in no uncertain terms.’

Abi scanned her face. ‘You said you and he fell out?’

Athena nodded. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘No.’ Athena sat back against the cushions, and shook her head. She was wearing a peacock-blue sweater with lapis and silver beads.

‘All right. Sorry. Well, at least tell me, he made it clear he’s no Christian. Is he a fully paid up pagan?’

Athena smiled. ‘Oh yes, I think you could say that.’

Abi bit her lip. She was silent for a moment, then she shrugged. ‘Can I have his phone number?’

‘I can give you his mobile number. But it may not be up to date.’

‘I’ll try it and see.’ Abi waited. When nothing else was forthcoming she went on, ‘And can I have his address? Then if the phone doesn’t work I can at least drop him a line. Unless he has an e-mail address?’

Athena snorted derisively. ‘As if.’

‘Why not? He’s a writer, he’s doing research. It would make sense, surely.’

‘It might make sense to you, dear,’ Athena said, caustically, ‘but I doubt if he would go in for that sort of thing.’ She shrugged. ‘OK, I’ll give you his address. He lived in Wales. But for all I know, he left there a long time ago. He might even be back here by now, after all he seems to drop in at Woodley quite regularly.’ She got up and went over to her desk which stood between the two French doors onto the balcony. After a lot of rummaging around amongst piles of papers and notebooks she produced an old address book and began to flip through the pages. Eventually she found what she was looking for and reaching for a notepad copied it down, tearing off the piece of paper for Abi.

‘Powys?’ Abi looked down at it curiously. Her heart sank at the thought of how far away that sounded.

‘It’s a little cottage, high up on a mountain. Very remote. Which is just as well as I’m sure he would annoy the hell out of any neighbours he might have!’ Athena said tartly.

Abi smiled. ‘You and he really don’t get on any more, do you?’

‘I told you.’

‘I’d love to know what he did to you.’

‘Well, you’re not going to. Are you going to come and have some lunch with me over the road or are you going to rush off and ring him now?’

‘Lunch,’ Abi said decisively. ‘I’ve got lots to tell you. My priestly stalker is back. He searched my room and he’s giving me the creeps.’ It helped to talk about it and Athena was a good listener. The irritable and mysterious Justin could wait.

The wind had risen. It screamed across the countryside, tearing leaves from the trees, whipping the water into waves. The sky was the colour of lead, the clouds towering columns of darkness promising thunder and lightning across the length and breadth of the land. He smiled, feeling the tingle of excitement through his blood. He could feel no threat, no promise of retribution here. This was the land and the sky speaking their own words.

Why still the rage of the storm when it was glorious?